Too Good. in Phoenix

If life has taught me anything, it’s that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Okay, it always is.

But shouldn’t there come a time in a person’s life where maybe they find something that seems too good to be true but it’s true nonetheless? Like, life stops yanking the rug out from under you, jerking the football away just before you kick? Is that a thing? Does maybe life finally say, “Okay, okay, you’ve had enough, I’ll stop now?” That would be excellent.

Is it just more self-destructive tendencies? Am I not capable of having good things, of allowing myself? I don’t really believe that I was the only cause of all the destruction I’ve experienced throughout life. Just no. Some of it is definitely on me, but I’m not solely to blame. People did some pretty shitty things to me, took advantage of me, abused me in various ways, neglected me. Abandoned me. A lot of people.

When bad shit happens to you, and then more bad shit, and more bad shit, and the bad shit is an avalanche and you can’t breathe and you wish for death, you (well, I personally) can’t help but wonder what the common denominator is. You know? I mean, is it really possible that I actually just… picked really shitty people? Or was I the shitty person because I was the common denominator of a bunch of shitty people.

(I’m using the word “shitty” a lot. Hm.)

I have to look at myself, you know? I have to acknowledge my own mistakes, my own wrongdoings. I can’t just go through life blaming my shitty choices on shitty people. Me making shitty choices doesn’t cancel out the shitty behavior of other people, make them less shitty in some way. I can cut those people from my life now but that does little to confront the reasons I let them into my life in the first place. Those reasons? They are my weaknesses. Whatever the reasons are that my brain allowed me, even pushed me, to surround myself with mostly garbage human beings, those are weaknesses I must root out and eliminate.

I need to evaluate my reactions to those situations, those mistakes and bad decisions. Instead of thinking of them in terms of things that happened to me, I need to think of them as things that I allowed to happen for some unfathomable reason.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

I need to alter the way I react to the bad things rather than allowing the bad things to alter the way I react to the good things. I need to change my reaction to good, happy things. I need to learn how to do that. I need to learn how to react fearlessly, without uncertainty, self-consciousness, and doubt. I need to learn how to trust, in myself and in others.

I said something awhile back on Facebook. Some shit like, “Falling in love really is like falling. It’s like falling off a cliff and trusting the person at the bottom to catch you. If the person at the bottom let’s you fall on your face instead, fuck ‘em.” Basically. If the person you fall for let’s you fall, knowing that they aren’t going to catch you, that says far more about their character than it does yours. It does not mean you are unlovable. It means that you fell and, for a moment, you flew. We all have to land eventually. If the person at the bottom doesn’t catch you, just make sure you land on your feet and hit the ground running. Don’t let someone else determine your worth. Ever.

(i’ll catch you, by the way. i’ll always catch you.)

I used to be the worst kind of reactor. Is that the right word to use? I reacted fucking terribly to everything. When you have the goddamn alphabet of mental illness and you are somehow surviving while encountering the hardest times of your life, the most painful, the abuse- and self-hatred-filled years… well. I was like a nuclear reactor melting the fuck down. I was kind of a monster. No, that is not negative self-talk, alright? I’m owning my part in my own existence.

I have since looked back (oh I’ve looked back so many times) and I can actually pick moments in time and list the various symptoms of various illnesses all lumped together into one very bad moment (day, week, months, years…).

Perhaps I did have a penchant for narcissistic men. I mean, we’re only talking 3 men over a 24-year period of my life. They were all gleefully unhelpful while pretending to be helpful. They were super shitty to me in a variety of ways. But I reacted super shitty in an even broader variety. I have to address that capacity within myself, the capacity to react in all the wrong, unhealthy ways.

I think that I was drawn to a certain personality type for the abuse. I believe it was a subconscious decision for the most part. I believed I deserved it for some reason. Well, for probably a lot of reasons, mostly dating back to very early childhood and continuing throughout my young life into adulthood. I had a sense of myself from a very young age, that I was different, weird, other. I didn’t see the world like other people saw it and I sensed that I felt more. Other kids my age were mostly annoying. I had very few close friends, (still have very few) and I preferred to be alone a lot. I was bullied at home and bullied in school. I think I was trained, groomed, to be drawn to bullies. Control freaks. Narcissists. I felt so out of control most of the time that maybe I needed someone who wanted to control me.

Also, mental illness. Never knowing why I was so different, never understanding that I was actually born this way (mostly… no one is born with PTSD), and that I wasn’t a freak. I was perpetually confused about who I was and who I was supposed to be and why did I have weird thoughts and why do I like boys and girls? (I was 10 when I discovered kissing girls. I got in trouble for making hickies on my best friend’s neck once. Said we were playing vampires. Mmhmm.)

Yes, yes, I have a point. I also consumed a substantial amount of THC a bit ago and my mind is wandering.

My entire life, I was programmed to not expect good things. Programmed by others, and by myself. I allowed myself to be programmed, after all. I didn’t exactly know that the people who were supposed to love and support and protect me were lying to me, you know, programming me to think less of myself.

Nearly everyone who has ever claimed to love me has made some attempt at making me believe that I should be thankful for that love because I didn’t really deserve it. Every last time, if it seemed too good to be true, it was! Because every time someone was cruel to me in some way, after seeming too good to be true, I let myself believe them because they loved me and supported me and protected me, right? Vicious fucking cycle.

I trusted all the wrong people.

This new life feels too good to be true and I don’t know how to trust in it.

I don’t know how to trust in myself. Not yet, anyway. I’m breaking this cycle. I’m not going to do this to myself anymore. I’m not going to allow it. I know this to be true. I will never be a willing victim again. I will never undervalue myself again.

(so easy to say, so very easy)

I’m going to try. I’m going to try to let things that seem too good to just be true. I’m going to allow myself to bathe in the sunlight and love, joy and passion, that my new life brings.

I’m going to hit the ground running.

Last updated May 13, 2019